A combination of a resilient performance from West Brom, strange defending from Arsenal and lack of luck saw us miss out on winning three points, which would have seen us go top of the league.

After Man United won 2-1 against Watford earlier in the day, it was crucial that Arsenal caplitalised and grabbed top of the league.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. It was just one of those days.

Although we were generally poor, we did have the chances and possession, but nothing seemed to want to go our way.

An early injury to Coquelin perhaps signalled what type of match it was going to be. Although we were trying to get the midfield involved, we found it difficult against the deep lying West Brom.

In the second half, we finally began to press but when an effort from Ozil went off the post, it became clear that it just wasn’t our day.

We’re seriously missing Ramsey and I for one will be starting a prayer circle hoping that he’ll return sooner rather than later.

Petr Cech – 6

The goals were more the fault of our defence than our keeper but there were a couple of nervy moments where there was miscommunication between him and our defence that could have meant the scoreline was a lot worse.

Hector Bellerin – 5

The youngster had trouble with McClean from the outset and continued to have a generally poor game. He was out of position for their second goal and was far from the defender we’ve seen over the last year.

Laurent Koscielny – 6

At times, the centre back looked better going forward than some of our attacking players.

Per Mertesacker – 5.5

The tall German was continually misplacing passes and making odd decisions.

Nacho Monreal – 6

When even Monreal isn’t at the races, you know there isn’t much hope. Although the Spaniard was one of our slightly better players, he was far from decent.

Francis Coquelin – N/A

The midfielder was subbed off in 13th minute with an injury.

Santi Cazorla – 4

The midfielder was one of our poorest players. He found it hard to get involved and then when he was called into action to take a corner, he couldn’t even beat the first man. His game was summed up as he completely fluffed his penalty in the dying minutes – something the Spaniard will be looking to forget as soon as possible.

Mesut Ozil – 6.5

Ozil was one of our few bright sparks and was constantly driving play forward, looking to put in through balls (his pass to Flamini in the 58th minute was stunning) and even score himself. He got an assist for our one and only goal, and had a couple of good efforts, one of which came off the post in the second half. Can we have a team full of Ozils please?

Alexis Sanchez – 6.5

The Chilean was head and shoulders above most players on the pitch, including our own team. However, as good as he was going forward, he was pretty weak defensively.

Kieran Gibbs – 5

I’m stilll not convinced that Gibbs belongs in such an advanced roll.

Olivier Giroud – 6

The striker was playing a bit far back at times for my liking but he was a physical presence in the box. A lot of the time he needs to pay more attention to ball than players round him. Saying this, he did score.

SUBS

Mikel Arteta – 3.5

The midfielder gave away the free kick which led to West Brom’s first goal and also scored an own goal. He then went off injured. Not a good day for Arteta.

Mathieu Flamini – 4

The sub didn’t really do anything of note, except perhaps give the ball away a couple of times. However, he also didn’t score an own goal so… swings and roundabouts.

Joel Campbell – 4

The sub kept giving the ball away and had a shocking miss in the 67th minute. Hardly the super-sub we were hoping for.